Hmmm. How much did it cost to store the Dead Sea Scrolls for 2000 years?

The dead sea scrolls are a digital medium. The scrolls themselves are obviously deteriorated; if they were an analogue recording of some sort you would not be pointing them out as a success story.

I suppose the best way to archivally store visual information would be to digitally record the data in the form of QR codes or something simpler like plain-text image information, onto B&W archival film. Then not only will the film last for hundreds of years, it would be copyable infinitely many times with no generation loss.

My 25 year old CNC router at work boots up on a 5.25" disc. I keep the controller power on so it doesn't have to do it very often (although I don't know if that's actually a good idea).

A work colleague has just bought a 5.25" drive emulator. I was surprised to see that my Excellon CNC-6 controller was in the list of approved machines to use it with so all is not lost if the drive gives up.

Steve.

"People who say things won't work are a dime a dozen. People who figure out how to make things work are worth a fortune" - Dave Rat.

Hmmm. How much did it cost to store the Dead Sea Scrolls for 2000 years?

In todays society, where everything has a price, Im sure it would cost a small fortune. It was lucky for those involved that some enterprising camel herder didnt want to sell the rights to his cave for the use of media storage.

I am 18 and this topic is of my interest. As many do, I too foresee a "digital dark age" in some fields.

Originally Posted by GRHazelton

And the problem isn't limited to pictures. My daughter has had two volumes of her poetry published by university presses, on acid free paper, but her chapbook is only in E-book format. How long will that be available? And how many of the youngsters out there understand the problem, or even give a damn.

Really really few. I am one of them.
On a casual conversation with a retiree he told me that us youngsters don't tend to view the past as much as older people and for many the present doesn't feel that is important, ie. its relevance on keeping memories for the future. We got many more years ahead!

After all, you never know that something is valuable until it is, and sometimes it might be too late to keep. This is an adaptation of a quote I read a while ago on a framing article. A print or negative might be not kept in optimal conditions because it doesn't seem relevant until it has deteriorated and time made it valuable.
As many people do, I use digital for many areas of my shooting. And I agree in that backing it up is a pain in the back end. I once misplaced a file back up and the snaps would deem to be important; one of the persons photographed died at a rather young age. That struck me hard and I rather mistrust digital archiving.

Also, I've got the usual collection of family memorabilia around. 80-15 years old pictures, letters, etc. Kept in a room and most of it is in great condition.